News Update

We've had an eventful week here on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has been comfortable, but it is turning colder now. I had a bad experience on Thursday due to my careless use of my snowblower. It got plugged with snow, so I tried to clear it, but I failed to check that the blower had in fact, disengaged! For some reason, the clutch failed to disengage, so when I reached in to clear the snow, it grabbed my fingers and gave them a few whacks. I looked at my hand—the glove was undamaged! But, it hurt so much, I decided to check—I was greeted by a pool of blood, and the appearance of about 2cm of bone of my index and middle fingers. I pushed the pads of flesh back down, and put the snowblower away while Wendy started the car. This was about 10am, and we spent most of the rest of the day at Emergency! The conclusion included about 15 stitches, 4 breaks in the three fingers involved, and an appointment for followup with a plastic surgeon next week to see if the bones are knitting together well. I was fitted with a special splint by the physiotherapy guys at the Hand Clinic. 

Cleaned, but Messy

Stitched Up

Bandaged & Splinted

This coming Thursday, I'll get more x-rays, and meet with the doctor on Friday, hoping to avoid pins into the ends of my fingers. In the meantime, I'm on antibiotics to ward off infection and T3s to ward off pain! Those tamper-resistant pill bottles are difficult to open with one hand! On the positive side, my vision continues to improve in my right eye, and I'm now able to read material from my laptop screen. The markets ran well until Friday when weak employment data in the USA brought on a sell off. Still, I was blessed with a good gain overall. The Oilers have been playing better, and have recovered into a playoff position. Leafs and Pens are doing well. My #3-Jayhawks won easily midweek, but had a tough game today against #4-Baylor, and also suffered an injury to their best player. So, they'll undoubtedly be dropped in the next ranking, probably out of the top ten. The Continental Cup is on in curling, and so far Team Europe is taking it to Team Canada—c'mon guys! 

It was back to work this week for the Baileys. Liam had a specialist appointment in Saskatoon on Friday so he’s back for a visit this weekend. Liam hasn’t seen any improvement in his iron and blood count from his most recent iron transfusion so he’s going to try a round of prednisone, and some additional iron transfusions, closer together, to get his blood count back up. Other than that it’s been business as usual for Eric, Erica, Haaken and Liam. 

Erin has been suffering most of the week with flu-like symptoms. Kristian is back at school and doing fine. Lucy has changed so much, and now looks like a full-grown cat. She enjoys watching and chasing sports action on TV. 

Travis and Joanna have had another week of completion and set-up. They're off to Punta Cana for a couple of weeks in the sun, so they are getting some jobs out the door even as they are getting other projects ready so the orders and money will be rolling in while they relax on the beach! Nice work, if you can get it! Tonight, they brought over their dog,  Minnie, and their budgie. Wendy will be taking care of them for the next while. 

And that's plenty enough for this week.